Start of summer

It has been an extremely busy few weeks in the Larson household, so this will be a random hodge-podge of info on what we've been up to.  Hoping to get more consistant as the summer goes on, but who knows if that will actually happen!

I hosted a baby shower for my best friend from high school a few weekends ago - she's due in late July and will be having her first baby, a son!  I'm so excited for her and her new family, so it was wonderful getting to have her and her family/friends over to celebrate the new little one.  It's always so great getting to see your close friends evolve in life and take on the next step - Kari will be an amazing mom, and I'm glad that I finally live closer to her to be able to share in the fun with her.  Here are a few pics:

Later that weekend, we hung out with some new friends we met in the neighborhood at one of our local bars (Skylark) to play some shuffle board.  It's nice having friends nearby now!  Also that weekend, I hit up the City Park Jazz night with Joe and Keri and some of their friends.  (Unfortunately, Matt couldn't make it cuz he was playing on the worship team at church which basically takes up his entire Sunday.)  We hope to make it to more Sunday nights at City Park - what a fun way to spend a summer evening!

I somehow decided to run for a position on our Baker Historic Neighborhood Association's Board.  Being that it's not a super popular thing to do, my campaign was uncontested, and I now serve as the BHNA Secretary.  Looking back, I probably should have put this off for a year or so, but so it is.  I am now involved in the neighborhood whether I like it or not and have the fun responsibilities of typing up minutes and agendas, going to meetings, hearing from folks in the 'hood.  All very exciting stuff, and I'm sure you're jealous :)

Matt is playing on Medtronic's softball team on Monday nights and has been having fun with that.  Doesn't quite match up to the fun we had playing sports in DC with CAN, but it's at least something!  We do miss the fun times we had playing flag football and softball (and soccer for matt) out there - I don't think we'll ever find anything like that again.  Great memories with great friends out there. :)

Bryan was in town briefly on Thursday night as he was heading out to Sterling for his 10 year high school reunion.  After picking him up from the airport in a crazy storm (and seeing an awesome double rainbow), we got some good catch up time at Atomic Cowboy on Colfax, and Friday morning I drove him to Fort Morgan to meet his mom so we could all grab breakfast together.  It's always great seeing her - she's really taken me in as a member of their family, and I love them! I definitely miss having Bryan around and am not so secretly plotting to have him move to Denver.  :)

World Cup mania started this weekend, so what else did Matt do but wear a US flag (as a cape) throughout our neighborhood.  It was great for many high fives and honks.  We enjoyed the US/England game with Keri and Joe first with breakfast at our place and then beers at Dougherty's.  Who doesn't love when global sporting events bring out the patriots in us all? :)

The last thing I'll mention is that I started my prerequisite classes this past week (3 online), and they've been kicking my butt!  Who knew that online classes were so much work?? I think I'd much prefer to sit in a class, take notes, write a few papers and take an exam. If you've never taken an online course, there's a lot of reading, constant checking-in, discussion posting with the class, papers, quizzes, etc.  It's actually been somewhat tough to keep up with!  Maybe it's just that I've been out of college for 7 years... but in any case, it's been taking up a lot of time.  I'm still working Mondays and Tuesdays this month to help us with some income (I'm still not sure what my student loans will be this Fall, I need to get on that!), so my weeks already feel full.  Thankfully, the other thing taking up much of my time (studying for the social studies PRAXIS test) is now over for the time being - I took the test on Saturday morning and will find out in a month if I'll be "certified" to teach my subject area.  It was a super hard test for anyone wondering - it covered all of world and US history, economics, geography, anthropology, psychology, sociology, and government/politics.  WHEW, I'm tired just thinking about it again.  Here's hoping I don't have to take it again!

Memorial Day Stuff

Happy Memorial Day!!

Memorial Day weekend came and went quickly - and boy are we tired.  I mean, TIRED.  My mom and Jason came up on Friday afternoon to pick up our fence materials in Longmont and meet us for dinner, so as soon as we got home from work, we were off.  We talked about the plans for the weekend-o-work then headed to Breckenridge Brewery for dinner (the bbq one on Kalamath).  I wasn't the biggest fan of the atmosphere/environment, so not sure I'll make it back.  We then hit up Sweet Action (I know I've already referenced it, but SUCH great ice cream!!) and hit the sack early to get ready for Saturday's job: the fence.

Bright and early Saturday morning, my mom and Jason woke up and unloaded the van full of fencing materials (I'm talking like 6am).  Once Matt and I woke up (like, not 6am), we got rolling.  We visited Home Depot to rent a jack hammer and from there we started a day full of several more trips to Home Depot (and more tool rentals, including a chop saw that I got to operate!!), lots of fence post hole digging (poor Matt!), building the fence, and racing to beat the rain by 8pm.  It was all worth it, and we now have a fabulous fence to show for it, and it truly was a family affair.  Lots of hard work, but good times (and we learned a lot!).

We used Sunday to finish the gates and work on a few other projects (fixing the new screen door Jason installed last weekend, straightening up our "landscaping" in the front, cleaning up the back patio, etc.) while we had Jason on hand :)  It's great for us whenever he comes up, but I'm sure he dreads it!  My mom and I went to Paulino Gardens, an amazing nursery (HUGE!) off I-25.  The way we built the fence in front allowed for a small area for flowers, so we got a couple Irises, a poppy, a mini-rose bush, and a Columbine (the CO state flower!).  Our neighborhood seems to have a ton of gorgeous purple Irises, so we wanted to join the "club" :).  I don't know much about flowers/gardens, so my mom helped me plant them, and it looks great!

The dogs (my folks brought up two of theirs) LOVED finally getting to enjoy the fenced in yard.  Lincoln was in doggy heaven :)

We also worked on laying a new concrete landing at the bottom of our patio stairs in the back to try and hide an ugly pipe that sticks up about 4 inches over the ground.  It was a tough task, so after all the hard work (it was originally planned to be red concrete stamped to look like stone) Matt and I actually came back after it dried and decided to try something a little crazy. Left to our own devices (my family left Sunday evening), we ended up doing a few late Monday night trips to Home Depot and managed to come up with something decent.  We'll see how it goes long-term!

We're VERY grateful for my parents offering to spend the weekend doing manual labor with us.  It was so generous to give up their time for us and our new home.  We're definitely blessed.

Memorial day itself was a fabulous one.  Yes, fabulous.  We stayed Sunday night at my folks' place in Louisville so we could head to Boulder early the next morning.  We parked our car at Kari & Jeff's place in South Boulder and got to spend some time with them before riding our bikes into the chaos downtown.  (We couldn't have asked for a more beautiful day!!)

Our original plan was to try and catch part of the Bolder Boulder, but we ended up heading to Folsom Field first to catch the end of the race.  There were a ton of people enjoying the day, and it was fun to be back on the CU campus.  We rode over to the Sink to grab a beer (Matt had never been, and it's a Boulder tradition!!) and then rode over to Kim and Paul's place downtown.  We had an awesome time hanging out with them, and we even got to catch the elite runners at the end of the race right outside their house!  Kristen and Thomas (and baby Katin) came over for lunch, and we enjoyed a great bbq.  We all walked down to the Boulder Creek Festival where Kristen and I entered our rubber ducks into the rubber duck race on the Creek.  After waiting with lots of anticipation, we sadly found out that our ducks did not win.  Thankfully, we had a great time regardless!!

And of course I'd like to say thanks to all our men and women who have served this country in the military.  We are a mighty nation with many blessings, and I'm grateful for the sacrifices they have made and continue to make so we can continue to enjoy our ways of life.  THANK YOU!  (A great place to donate, if you're looking for one: http://www.woundedwarriorproject.org/)